COMMENTARY: Athletics, administration need to work together, end staff turnover

It’s almost literally true that IU is no longer the institution current seniors entered three years ago as freshmen.

When Fred Glass was formally announced Monday as the University’s next director of athletics, effective Jan. 2 of next year, it ended a year-long process that slowly, but surely, saw turnover and foundational change across this campus.

The incredible amount of turnover within the administration in the last five years all culminated Tuesday, as the guard was finally changed in perhaps the third most important office on the Bloomington campus.

But what in the name of Clarence Doninger does all of that mean?

Changing “vice provost” to “vice president” on a few business cards – what does that have to do with the new athletics director? The answer isn’t “everything,” but it’s probably a lot more than you think.

To put this all in perspective, consider the relative instability on campus since even before sitting director Rick Greenspan’s arrival.

Since 2003, we’ve had two presidents, Adam Herbert and now Michael McRobbie. The well-trafficked chancellor position has been eliminated in favor of the office of provost during Herbert’s restructuring plan, a position once held by McRobbie and now occupied by Karen Hanson.

The entire University administration was upheaved, with McRobbie bringing in a slew of new administrative appointees – Mike Sample, Patrick O’Meara, Edwin Marshall, Roger Thompson, the list goes on. Now Greenspan is gone, and it’s time to come full circle.

When the board of trustees next meets on Dec. 11 and 12 in Indianapolis, Glass said McRobbie will recommend he be named a vice president within the University administration, further cementing his position within McRobbie’s new IU.

Bloomington Chancellor Ken Gros Louis said it’s time to create what McRobbie termed at the press conference “a more intimate relationship” between the athletics department and Bryan Hall.

“I think it’s good, and I think the coaches would agree,” Gros Louis said Tuesday afternoon, “for the athletics and academics to come closer together and learn more about one another. It certainly can’t hurt.”

Were Glass a vice president – a move the board would have to approve – he would attend McRobbie’s presidential cabinet meetings, where a variety of issues ranging from budgets to fundraising to major appointments are discussed.

“It’s the big picture,” Gros Louis said. “I think it’s good for the athletic director to know the priorities of the institution, major issues facing the institution. And I’m sure that he’ll be invited to put things on the agenda too.”

That should be just the beginning.

If the last year has taught McRobbie one thing, it’s that public perception can and often does matter far more than test scores or national rankings. The image-hit IU absorbed in the wake of the Kelvin Sampson debacle was a hard body-blow to an institution hell-bent on elevating its national profile in both athletics and higher education.

The two are inexorably linked in today’s sports-driven world, and it’s high time IU recognized that fact.

When Greenspan was hired in 2004, he inherited a program in financial disarray and without a clear leader or direction. He did what he thought was best in trying to provide guidance to the beleaguered department.

While Greenspan will almost certainly be remembered for Sampson and all that came after, he will still leave his fingerprints all over the department, thanks to new facilities, a slew of new coaches and rising success in several secondary sports all evidence of his work.

But even in Greenspan’s Assembly Hall, it seemed like there existed a revolving door of faces.

During his tenure, the man IU lured from Army hired two new football coaches, two new women’s basketball coaches, two new men’s basketball coaches (and one interim, Dan Dakich), one new baseball coach, one new track and field and cross country coach, one new volleyball coach, one new softball coach and one new men’s tennis coach.

So, Glass’ appointment, while admittedly and fairly one of the highlights of his life, needs to be more than just a new page in the history of IU.

It needs to be the last page turned at the end of an old chapter in IU’s history and the beginning of a new one.

There are dozens of ways he can be a part of McRobbie’s vision for the University, which has struggled to take off because of numerous setbacks, several of which originated at Assembly Hall.

The athletics department can no longer stand to be a body all its own. Glass said Monday morning he hopes “that the width of 17th Street gets pretty narrow,” and he expects athletics to be a major part of the University’s overarching academic and institutional goals moving forward.

“I look forward,” he said, “to working very closely with the president’s office, integrating the athletic department with the University, following the president’s vision for excellence in all things, so I would imagine that that will be a close relationship.”

We’ll hold you to that.